Okay so today I went to my normal school built in 1931. I’ve only pulled 2 silvers (Rosie’s) and a silver ring plus the normal clad.
The area in the back is huge prob 50 acres. Open fields and a really old baseball back stop. I had the stock coil on using auto sense fast on deep off. It was quiet... TOOO quiet.
WTF I THOUGHT! So I reached in my bag and pulled out a dime and buried it 8 inches. Sweep sweep nada. Okay now I’m ticked off.

Going into the Etrac I went manual sens.. maxed at 30 deep on fast off threshold high as I could stand it open screen. Sweep sweep nailed it!

Hmm I thought..

Walking over behind the back stop in the middle of the field (picture a giant field with a back stop in the middle lol ) the ground was moist and soft. Depression running near it.

Gong VERY slowly every signal was PEGGED! Whaaaat? So all this time with 4 detectors I’ve pounded it with all signals were super deep?

I opened up the screen from Andy S pattern to quick mask notched it up to 25, again super slow sweep I heard another high squeaker, repeatable. Dug down about 8 inches from my shove depth.. still down there. Another 2 inches the pinpointed knocked out a crusty green wheat!

This was a revelation to me because the old adage, “Is it me, is it the detector or the site?” Well here in this moist soil I pulled a huge rusty nail at 13 inches. Next hole another wheat. 10 inches.

What I discovered is soil moisture, composition (clay) and the site being pretty clean, I could look really deep and push the Etracs limits.

....been off this forum for the summer
but saw this thread and had to jump in
in the last month, i have been running open screen....TTF....manual 23-24(all most areas i hunt can take!!)
deep off....fast off(left the presets alone)
just got back now from a quick after work hunt in the hour of light the day left me
in one of the oldest towns on the east coast....
BANG!!.......down 13 inches....an Irish 1689 gun money James II shilling
the signal was not even that faint in sort of dry crumbly dirt!!
decent readable date for a coin in tidally influenced ground for 300 years!!!!
also goat a bunch of colonial era buttons ....an early 1800s Largie and some other misc
the moral of the story is the open screen is the key to getting what you want!!
i am now going to go back over ALL of the places i have hunted in the 6 months since i got my Etrac.....
with NO disc....open screen......and reap the rewards
hit a local spot last night for like half an hour at dusk
i had hit it at least 15 times in the last 6 months and swore it was bare at this point
ran totally open with manual sens at 23/24
pulled an 1889 and 1897 Indian and several old tokens with ease!!!!
only like 4-5 inches down!!!! i had run my stock coil and the NEL thunder over that same area a dozen times too!!!
geeeeez....all you have to do is get used to all the iron and mineral noise and thunking
and listen for chirps and slight squeeks as you more ever so slowly
you will be AMAZED as i have been!!.......1689 guys!!!!! good grief )))i have also found an 1808 draped bust half cent.....
a 1754 1/2 reale//spanish silver......AND a super tiny seated 1840 half dime in the past several weeks with this method
not bragging//lots of time and hard work....but the thrill of digging these types of hard to come by coins is mind boggling!!!!

ron.....not sure if you were directing this post to me...or the author Gannon?!?!?
and i sure as heck do not want to...or mean to hijack his post!!
but the one truism is that when you run the Etrac super HOT with open screen and very high manual sens, the numbers more or less go out the door....i run TTF...and dig every deeper non iron sound with great results

my rules of thumb are if it rings in over 28 conductive i dig(and of course nickel range targets too!!)
if it rings in over 5-6 inches...i dig
and i can tell you that i am starting to go over spots that i searched in BOTh directions with COINS mode in AUTO+3
and i am shocked at what i missed!!...even after a bunch of hunts that had diminishing returns and made me thing the sire was cooked......NOT SO!!

Quotesunraysux
ron.....not sure if you were directing this post to me...or the author Gannon?!?!?
and i sure as heck do not want to...or mean to hijack his post!!
but the one truism is that when you run the Etrac super HOT with open screen and very high manual sens, the numbers more or less go out the door....i run TTF...and dig every deeper non iron sound with great results

my rules of thumb are if it rings in over 28 conductive i dig(and of course nickel range targets too!!)
if it rings in over 5-6 inches...i dig
and i can tell you that i am starting to go over spots that i searched in BOTh directions with COINS mode in AUTO+3
and i am shocked at what i missed!!...even after a bunch of hunts that had diminishing returns and made me thing the sire was cooked......NOT SO!!

Thanks for the info Sunray can’t wait to get out there and try it out!